Sunday 23 October 2016

Canadian Thanksgiving Year Two

Last year we hosted our first big Canadian Thanksgiving dinner at our new home and welcomed 22 of our friends and family here for an amazing meal. This year our numbers swelled to 32 and I like to think we honed our skills a little more with this being our second attempt at having such a large gathering.

As with the first year we did a sit-down meal. Moving our furniture outside onto the decks and moving rented tables in to accommodate the numbers. Guests brought side dishes and we did a 23lb turkey, a salmon and tri-tip and many many potatoes. I hired two local high school students to keep the kids entertained so parents could eat and enjoy themselves. It worked out very well. I only saw a brief glimpse of Austen who was having the time of his life.

People came from near and far. We had four of our guests drive and fly up from LA (7-8 hour drive) and my brother flew down from Vancouver. Lots of folks clocked in several hours driving from around the Bay Area with littles in the car to get here too. Quite amazing to have people put out all that effort to make this year such a success. Hats off to my brother, Adrian who did an amazing amount of prep work with us in the days prior. We could not have made all that food happen without him.

Maple cookies (my little baking contribution)

One of the tables set for dinner